400 employees became millionaires overnight when a founder sold his startup for $3.7 billion before its IPO

For most startup founders, a billion-dollar exit is the ultimate dream.

For Indian-origin entrepreneur Jyoti Bansal, however, the biggest reward from selling his company was not his own fortune, but the lives it changed for hundreds of employees.

In 2017, just days before software company AppDynamics was set to go public, tech giant Cisco stepped in with a $3.7 billion acquisition offer.

The deal instantly transformed many ordinary workers into millionaires and became one of Silicon Valley’s most talked-about startup buyouts.The $3.7 billion deal that made 400 employees millionaires overnightAt the time of the acquisition, AppDynamics was preparing for its initial public offering (IPO).

The company had become one of the fastest-growing software startups in the business monitoring and analytics sector, attracting strong investor interest.But instead of going public, Bansal chose to sell the company to Cisco.